- The World According To Trump
The following map, from BofaML's Transforming World Atlas, shows the world mapped proportionally by country according to the number of times mentioned by President Trump in his tweets and speeches (campaign and presidency)…
Source: BofAML
The Top 8 are: USA, China, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Mexico, Iran, and United Kingdom
- Is The US Prepared For A Nuclear EMP To Shut-Down New York City?
Authored by Peter Pry, chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, op-ed via The Hill,
Since Sept. 11, 2001, analysts have been increasingly concerned terrorists might steal, buy, build, or be given a nuclear weapon — and the War on Terrorism would become a nuclear war. The Department of Homeland Security’s National Planning Scenario #1 is detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb, in a location such as New York City or Washington, D.C.
Many experts warn an act of nuclear terrorism is not a question of if, but when.
Until the recent protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea, relatively less attention has been paid to the increasing possibility of nuclear war between nations. India and Pakistan are widely regarded as the most likely candidates for a nuclear conflict between states.
Although North Korea, Russia, and China have all made nuclear threats against the United States recently, in the case of North Korea and Russia repeatedly, most analysts dismiss these as mere “bluster” and “nuclear sabre rattling” not to be taken seriously. One day, perhaps soon, this may well prove to be a fatal mistake for millions.
In the West, generations of leaders and citizens have been educated that use of nuclear weapons is "unthinkable" and the ultimate horror. Not so in Russia, China, and North Korea where their nuclear capabilities are publicly paraded, missile launches and exercises are televised as a show of strength, an important part of national pride.
Whereas the U.S. nuclear deterrent is kept low-profile, almost invisible, and its utility and legitimacy much debated, Russia and China run TV documentaries describing how they would win a nuclear war with the United States.
The "international taboo" on nuclear warfare is one-sided and far more likely to have a psychologically paralyzing effect on the U.S. and its allies than on Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack would be perfect for implementing Russia's strategy of "de-escalation," where a conflict with the U.S. and its allies would be won by limited nuclear use. It's their version of "shock and awe" to cow the U.S. into submission. The same kind of attack is viewed as an acceptable option by China and North Korea as well.
An EMP attack would be the most militarily effective use of one or a few nuclear weapons, while also being the most acceptable nuclear option in world opinion, the option most likely to be construed in the U.S. and internationally as "restrained" and a "warning shot."
Because EMP destroys electronics instead of blasting cities, even some analysts in Germany and Japan, among the most anti-nuclear nations, regard EMP attacks as an acceptable use of nuclear weapons. High-altitude EMP attack entails detonating a nuclear weapon at 30-400 kilometers altitude — above the atmosphere, in outer space, so high that no nuclear effects, not even the sound of the explosion, would be experienced on the ground, except EMP.
An EMP attack will kill far more people than nuclear blasting a city through indirect effects – by blacking out electric grids and destroying life-sustaining critical infrastructures like communications, transportation, food and water – in the long run. But the millions of fatalities likely to eventually result from EMP will take months to develop, as slow as starvation.
Thus, a nation hit with an EMP attack will have powerful incentives to cease hostilities, focus on repairing their critical infrastructures while there is still time and opportunity to recover, and avert national extinction.
Indeed, an EMP attack or demonstration made to "de-escalate" a crisis or conflict is very likely to raise a chorus of voices in the West against nuclear escalation and send Western leaders in a panicked search for the first "off ramp."
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran in their military doctrines and training regard EMP attack as part of all-out cyber warfare, not necessarily as nuclear warfare.
Our proximity to a nuclear war may be suggested by the simple fact that analysts can now imagine many more possible pathways to a nuclear conflict today than was the case during the Cold War, then dominated by a more or less stable relationship between two nuclear superpowers, the U.S. and USSR.
Today, simply reading the newspapers reveals another possible nuclear confrontation regularly, for those with eyes to see.
For example, it was reported this week that the U.S. will deploy Patriot missiles to the Baltic states for a NATO exercise in July—just before Russia’s big annual military exercise ZAPAD-17 (WEST-17) that usually employs 100,000 troops to practice an invasion of NATO. What could possibly go wrong?
My book, "The Long Sunday," explores a dozen possible nuclear EMP attack scenarios that could plausibly happen in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and against North America — tomorrow.
Some analysts think the world is on the threshold of a "new nuclear age" where Cold War rules and assumptions about deterrence no longer apply and the likelihood of nuclear use is greatly increasing. The first nation to use nuclear weapons today — even a rogue state like North Korea or Iran — will immediately become the most feared and most credible nuclear power in the world, a formidable force to be reckoned with, and perhaps the dominant actor in a new world order.
- Confirmed: DNC Emails LEAKED … Not Hacked
We’ve reportedly documented that the DNC emails were leaked … not hacked.
(And the “evidence” that it was the Ruskies has collapsed.)
The head of Wikileaks – the organization which published the leaked DNC emails – has previously hinted that the leaker was DNC insider Seth Rich.
Today, the local Washington DC Fox news channel reports that the Rich family’s private investor – a former Homicide Detective in Washington DC and white collar criminal investigator for the Attorney General of the State of Ohio – says that evidence on Rich’s computers proves that he communicated with Wikileaks:
We’ll update details as they’re released …
- The 'Soft Coup' Of Russia-Gate
Authored by Robert Parry via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Where is Stanley Kubrick when we need him? If he hadn’t died in 1999, he would be the perfect director to transform today’s hysteria over Russia into a theater-of-the-absurd movie reprising his Cold War classic, “Dr. Strangelove,” which savagely satirized the madness of nuclear brinksmanship and the crazed ideology behind it.
A scene from “Dr. Strangelove,” in which the bomber pilot (played by actor Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet Union
To prove my point, The Washington Post on Thursday published a lengthy story entitled in the print editions “Alarm at Russian in White House” about a Russian photographer who was allowed into the Oval Office to photograph President Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The Post cited complaints from former U.S. intelligence officials who criticized the presence of the Russian photographer as “a potential security breach” because of “the danger that a listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office while hidden in cameras or other electronics.”
To bolster this alarm, the Post cited a Twitter comment from President Obama’s last deputy CIA director, David S. Cohen, stating “No, it was not” a sound decision to admit the Russian photographer who also works for the Russian news agency, Tass, which published the photo.
One could picture Boris and Natasha, the evil spies in the Bullwinkle cartoons, disguised as photographers slipping listening devices between the cushions of the sofas.
Or we could hear how Russians are again threatening to “impurify all of our precious bodily fluids,” as “Dr. Strangelove” character, Gen. Jack D. Ripper, warned us in the 1964 movie.
Watching that brilliant dark comedy again might actually be a good idea to remind us how crazy Americans can get when they’re pumped up with anti-Russian propaganda, as is happening again now.
Taking Down Trump
I realize that many Democrats, liberals and progressives hate Donald Trump so much that they believe that any pretext is justified in taking him down, even if that plays into the hands of the neoconservatives and other warmongers. Many people who detest Trump view Russia-gate as the most likely path to achieve Trump’s impeachment, so this desirable end justifies whatever means.
Boris and Natasha, the evil spies from the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows
Some people have told me that they even believe that it is the responsibility of the major news media, the law enforcement and intelligence communities, and members of Congress to engage in a “soft coup” against Trump – also known as a “constitutional coup” or “deep state coup” – for the “good of the country.”
The argument is that it sometimes falls to these Establishment institutions to “correct” a mistake made by the American voters, in this case, the election of a largely unqualified individual as U.S. president. It is even viewed by some anti-Trump activists as a responsibility of “responsible” journalists, government officials and others to play this “guardian” role, to not simply “resist” Trump but to remove him.
There are obvious counter-arguments to this view, particularly that it makes something of a sham of American democracy. It also imposes on journalists a need to violate the ethical responsibility to provide objective reporting, not taking sides in political disputes.
But The New York Times and The Washington Post, in particular, have made it clear that they view Trump as a clear and present danger to the American system and thus have cast aside any pretense of neutrality.
The Times justifies its open hostility to the President as part of its duty to protect “the truth”; the Post has adopted a slogan aimed at Trump, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” In other words, America’s two most influential political newspapers are effectively pushing for a “soft coup” under the guise of defending “democracy” and “truth.”
But the obvious problem with a “soft coup” is that America’s democratic process, as imperfect as it has been and still is, has held this diverse country together since 1788 with the notable exception of the Civil War.
If Americans believe that the Washington elites are removing an elected president – even one as buffoonish as Donald Trump – it could tear apart the fabric of national unity, which is already under extraordinary stress from intense partisanship.
That means that the “soft coup” would have to be carried out under the guise of a serious investigation into something grave enough to justify the President’s removal, a removal that could be accomplished by congressional impeachment, his forced resignation, or the application of Twenty-fifth Amendment, which allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to judge a President incapable of continuing in office (although that could require two-thirds votes by both houses of Congress if the President fights the maneuver).
A Big Enough ‘Scandal’
That is where Russia-gate comes in. The gauzy allegation that Trump and/or his advisers somehow colluded with Russian intelligence officials to rig the 2016 election would probably clear the threshold for an extreme action like removing a President.
President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
And, given the determination of many key figures in the Establishment to get rid of Trump, it should come as no surprise that no one seems to care that no actual government-verified evidence has been revealed publicly to support any of the Russia-gate allegations.
There’s not even any public evidence from U.S. government agencies that Russia did “meddle” in the 2016 election or – even if Russia did slip Democratic emails to WikiLeaks (which WikiLeaks denies) – there has been zero evidence that the scheme resulted from collusion with Trump’s campaign.
The FBI has been investigating these suspicions for at least nine months, even reportedly securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, an American whom Trump briefly claimed as a foreign policy adviser when Trump was under fire for not having any foreign policy advisers.
One of Page’s alleged offenses was that he gave a speech to an academic conference in Moscow in July 2016 that was mildly critical of how the U.S. treated countries from the former Soviet Union. He also once lived in Russia and met with a Russian diplomat who – apparently unbeknownst to Page – had been identified by the U.S. government as a Russian intelligence officer.
It appears that is enough, in these days of our New McCarthyism, to get an American put under a powerful counter-intelligence investigation.
The FBI and the Department of Justice also reportedly are including as part of the Russia-gate investigation Trump’s stupid campaign joke calling on the Russians to help find the tens of thousands of emails that Hillary Clinton erased from the home server that she used while Secretary of State.
On July 27, 2016, Trump said, apparently in jest, “I will tell you this, Russia: if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”
The comment fit with Trump’s puckish, provocative and often tasteless sense of humor, but was seized on by Democrats as if it were a serious suggestion – as if anyone would use a press conference to seriously urge something like that. But it now appears that the FBI is grabbing at any straw that might support its investigation.
The (U.K.) Guardian reported this week that “Senior DoJ officials have declined to release the documents [about Trump’s comment] on grounds that such disclosure could ‘interfere with enforcement proceedings’. In a filing to a federal court in Washington DC, the DoJ states that ‘because of the existence of an active, ongoing investigation, the FBI anticipates that it will … withhold all records’.
“The statement suggests that Trump’s provocative comment last July is being seen by the FBI as relevant to its own ongoing investigation.”
The NYT’s Accusations
On Friday, in the wake of Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey and the President’s characterization of Russia-gate as “a total hoax,” The New York Times reprised what it called “The Trump-Russia Nexus” in a lead editorial trying to make the case of some fire behind the smoke.
Former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page
Though the Times acknowledges that there are “many unknowns” in Russia-gate and the Times can’t seem to find any evidence of collusion, such as slipping a Russian data stick to WikiLeaks, the Times nevertheless treats a host of Trump advisers and family members as traitors because they’ve had some association with Russian officials, Russian businesses or Russian allies.
Regarding Carter Page, the Times wrote: “American officials believe that Mr. Page, a foreign policy adviser, had contacts with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. He also gave a pro-Russia speech in Moscow in July 2016. Mr. Page was once employed by Merrill Lynch’s Moscow office, where he worked with Gazprom, a government-owned giant.”
You might want to let some of those words sink in, especially the part about Page giving “a pro-Russia speech in Moscow,” which has been cited as one of the principal reasons for Page and his communications being targeted under a FISA warrant.
I’ve actually read Page’s speech and to call it “pro-Russia” is a wild exaggeration. It was a largely academic treatise that faulted the West’s post-Cold War treatment of the nations formed from the old Soviet Union, saying the rush to a free-market system led to some negative consequences, such as the spread of corruption.
But even if the speech were “pro-Russia,” doesn’t The New York Times respect the quaint American notion of free speech? Apparently not. If your carefully crafted words can be twisted into something called “pro-Russia,” the Times seems to think it’s okay to have the National Security Agency bug your phones and read your emails.
The Ukraine Case
Another Times’ target was veteran political adviser Paul Manafort, who is accused of working as “a consultant for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine and for Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by the Kremlin.”
New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Left out of that Times formulation is the fact that the Ukrainian political party, which had strong backing from ethnic Russian Ukrainians – not just Russia – competed in a democratic process and that Yanukovych won an election that was recognized by international observers as free and fair.
Yanukovych was then ousted in February 2014 in a violent putsch that was backed by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. The putsch, which was spearheaded by right-wing nationalists and even neo-Nazis, touched off Ukraine’s civil war and the secession of Crimea, the key events in the escalation of today’s New Cold War between NATO and Russia.
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
Though I’m no fan of U.S. political hired-guns selling their services in foreign elections, there was nothing illegal or even unusual about Manafort advising a Ukrainian political party. What arguably was much more offensive was the U.S. support for an unconstitutional coup that removed Yanukovych even after he agreed to a European plan for early elections so he could be voted out of office peacefully.
But the Times, the Post and virtually the entire Western mainstream media sided with the Ukrainian coup-makers and hailed Yanukovych’s overthrow. That attitude has become such a groupthink that the Times has banished the thought that there was a coup.
Still, the larger political problem confronting the United States is that the neoconservatives and their junior partners, the liberal interventionists, now control nearly all the levers of U.S. foreign policy. That means they can essentially dictate how events around the world will be perceived by most Americans.
The neocons and the liberal hawks also want to continue their open-ended wars in the Middle East by arranging the commitment of additional U.S. military forces to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – and perhaps a new confrontation with Iran.
Early in Obama’s second term, it became clear to the neocons that Russia was becoming the chief obstacles to their plans because President Barack Obama was working closely with President Vladimir Putin on a variety of projects that undermined neocon hopes for more war.
Particularly, Putin helped Obama secure an agreement from Syria to surrender its chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013 and to get Iran to accept tight constraints on its nuclear program in 2014. In both cases, the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks were lusting for war.
Immediately after the Syria chemical-weapons deal in September 2013, key U.S. neocons began focusing on Ukraine as what National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman called “the biggest prize” and a first step toward unseating Putin in Moscow.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders
Gershman’s grant-giving NED stepped up its operations inside Ukraine while Assistant Secretary Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan, began pushing for regime change in Kiev (along with other neocons, including Sen. John McCain).
The Ukraine coup in 2014 drove a geopolitical wedge between Obama and Putin, since the Russian president couldn’t just stand by when a virulently anti-Russian regime took power violently in Ukraine, which was the well-worn route for invasions into Russia and housed Russia’s Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol in Crimea.
Rather than defend the valuable cooperation provided by Putin, Obama went with the political flow and joined in the Russia-bashing as key neocons raised their sights and put Putin in the crosshairs.
An Unexpected Obstacle
For the neocons in 2016, there also was the excited expectation of a Hillary Clinton presidency to give more momentum to the expensive New Cold War. But then Trump, who had argued for a new détente with Russia, managed to eke out an Electoral College win.
Perhaps Trump could have diffused some of the hostility toward him but his narcissistic personality stopped him from extending an olive branch to the tens of millions of Americans who opposed him. He further demonstrated his political incompetence by wasting his first days in office making ridiculous claims about the size of his inaugural crowds and disputing the fact that he had lost the popular vote.
Widespread public disgust over his behavior contributed to the determination of many Americans to “resist” his presidency at all junctures and at all costs.
Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove as he struggles to control his right arm from making a Nazi salute
Russia-gate, the hazy suggestion that Putin put Trump in the White House and that Trump is a Putin “puppet” (as Clinton claimed), became the principal weapon to use in destroying Trump’s presidency.
However, besides the risks to U.S. stability that would come from an Establishment-driven “soft coup,” there is the additional danger of ratcheting up tensions so high with nuclear-armed Russia that this extreme Russia-bashing takes on a life – or arguably many, many deaths – of its own.
Which is why America now might need a piercing satire of today’s Russia-phobia or at least a revival of the Cold War classic, “Dr. Strangelove,” subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
- China Suspends Bond Market After "Abnormal Fluctuations"
China has suspended trading in its bond market for at least one Ministry of Finance-issued bond suffered "abnormal fluctuations" in the last two trading days.
The MOF 2021s dumped and pumped by almost 10 points in the last two days (and at the same time 5Y China bond futures rallied and fell notably…
The Shanghai Stock Exchange has suspended trading of the bond (Number 019535):
[The bond] is trading this morning with abnormal fluctuations. According to the relevant provisions of the "Shanghai Stock Exchange Trading Rules" and the "Shanghai Stock Exchange Securities Exception Trading Real-time Monitoring Rules", the firm decided to suspend treasury bonds from 11:00 on May 16, 2017 (019535).
From 20:17 on May 16, 2017 to resume trading.
We remind investors to pay attention to transaction risk, rational investment.
After the resumption of trading, if the bond transaction again abnormal fluctuations, the implementation of the second interim suspension of trading, suspension time lasted to 14:55 today.
One wonders if the delveraging is killing liquidity in the Treasury market now (as we have already seen the impact in the corporate bond market)
- New Cali Budget Warns CalPERS Contributions "On Track To Double" In 6 Years
In his latest budget proposal, California Governor Jerry Brown, who continues to vehemently pursue various multi-billion dollar pet projects like the high-speed rail and the so-called “Delta Water Fix” despite his state teetering on the brink of insolvency, has finally admitted that CalPERS, California’s public pension system, is a total disaster.
Apparently Brown finally came to the realization that a 65% funding ratio is slightly less than ideal, especially since we’re on the precipice of a massive wave of Baby Boomer retirements, and warned that the “state’s contributions to CalPERS are on track to nearly double by fiscal year 2023?24.”
As of June 30, 2016, CalPERS reported that the state plans’ unfunded liability totals $59.5 billion and is 65 percent funded, meaning that CalPERS only has 65 percent of the funding required to make pension payments to state retirees.
Without the supplemental payment, by 2023?24, the state’s contribution is estimated to reach $9.2 billion ($5.3 billion General Fund), due to anticipated payroll growth and the lower assumed investment rate of return.
But don’t worry, it’s nothing that a little extra taxpayer-funded bribe to organized labor can’t fix…how does an extra $6 billion sound?…is that sufficient to buy your votes for a few more election cycles?
The May Revision includes a one?time $6 billion supplemental payment to the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) in 2017?18. This action effectively doubles the state’s annual payment and will mitigate the impact of increasing pension contributions due to the state’s large unfunded liabilities and the CalPERS Board’s recent action to lower its assumed investment rate of return from 7.5 percent to 7 percent.
And for those who might be worried that a doubling of California’s annual pension contributions seems like a huge burden for taxpayers to absorb…fear not, because they’ve basically already doubled over the past 5 years…so Brown has experience in “managing” such catastrophes.
Moreover, once we get to 2030 the whole problem just kind of magically fixes itself.
Of course, as we noted last December (see “CalPERS Board Votes To Maintain Ponzi Scheme With Only 50bps Reduction Of Discount Rate“) the above contribution forecast is nothing but a pipe dream as even CalPERS’ own finance committee chair admits that the pension’s discount rate still needs to come down materially from the current level of 7%. Per our prior post:
A few weeks ago we asked whether CalPERS would rely on sound financial judgement and math to set their rate of return expectations going forward or whether they would cave to political pressure to maintain artificially high return hurdles that they’ll never meet but help to maintain their ponzi scheme a little longer (see “CalPERS Weighs Pros/Cons Of Setting Reasonable Return Targets Vs. Maintaining Ponzi Scheme“). The decision faced by CALPERS was whether their long-term assumed rate of return on assets should be lowered from the current 7.5% down to a more reasonable 6%. Well, we now have our answer and it seems the board erred on the side of maintaining the ponzi with a decision to reduce the fund’s discount rate by only 50 bps, to 7%, to be phased in over 3 years.
While a 50bps decrease to a 7% discount rate will still trigger roughly $1 billion in incremental annual contributions from various California government entities according to Eric Stern of the California Department of Finance, it is still a long way from the fund’s estimated returns of just 6.2% over the next decade which happens to match exactly their returns from the past decade.
Meanwhile, Richard Costigan, chairman of the CalPERS finance committee, who vowed that “this is just a start,” more or less admits that the decision was politically motivated to allow “municipalities and other government agencies some breathing room before they absorb the impact.”
Of course, you could never get re-elected if you told the whole truth…
- Rand Paul Fears His Conversations May Have Been "Unmasked" By Obama Administration
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Before we get into the meat of this post, it’s important to refresh our memories on what the unmasking scandal is and why it’s important. In order to do that, let’s revisit excerpts from last month’s post, If What Susan Rice Did Wasn’t Illegal, It Should Be:
U.S. citizens who are caught up incidentally in foreign intelligence surveillance are typically subject to minimization rules to conceal their identities, though there are some exceptions.
Individuals can be exempt from the minimization rules if their identities are necessary to understand the value of the foreign intelligence.
Paul used Monday’s development to renew his push for reform of a controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allows the U.S. intelligence community to target non-Americans outside the United States without a warrant. The provision, Section 702, is up for renewal later this year.
Paul’s emphasis on reforming the law is exactly where it ought to be. For example, Susan Rice herself explained during a recent MSNBC interview, how the unmasking process works. Basically, she sees an intelligence report containing surveilled conversations between a foreigner and an American, and if she decides she wants to unmask the American, she makes that request to the intelligence community, which then approves or denies the request. That’s all it takes. Think about how potentially abusive this is. What happened when you have a situation where the deep state and the President are adamantly united against a candidate, as they were against Trump? Naturally they’re going to approve the unmasking of a political enemy, and it appears that is precisely what happened.
The key thing to remember here is that the current “process” of unmasking an American is rife for abuse. All it takes is a political operative who wants the surveillance intelligence, in this case Susan Rice, to request it from the intelligence community. No normal judge is needed to issue a warrant in a transparent process as should be the case. This makes a political hit using classified intelligence extremely easy, particularly against a guy like Trump. Just submit the request to an intel community that already hates the guy, get the information you want, then make sure it gets leaked to the press. Whether you like Mike Flynn or not, this is what seems to have happened to him, and it’s shady as hell.
Given what we know happened to Flynn, the logical next question is who else did Susan Rice, or others in the Obama administration, “unmask” while they were in power? We don’t have answers to that yet, but Rand Paul has some concerning suspicions.
Here’s some of what he had to say on the subject, courtesy of a Fox News interview:
Earlier this week, Paul said reporters have told him they have evidence he was a target of Obama administration spying.
This is the first time that Paul mentioned another senator is also concerned about the Obama administration’s surveillance.
He said if this proves to be true, it’s a much bigger story than any allegations about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the presidential election.
“It’s about your own government spying on the opposition party,” Paul said. “That would be enormous if it’s true.”
Paul told Fox Business Network’s Charles Payne on Wednesday that he’s asked the White House and the House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate.
He said if the intelligence community is indeed being used for politics, it’s a “very, very serious crime.”
I completely agree with his assessment. We really need to get to the bottom of this fast, and reform the entire amateurish “unmasking” process.
Here’s the full interview, I suggest you watch it. Starts off slowly, but really gets going toward the end.
//video.insider.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=5430569777001&w=466&h=263
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
- How Is This Not A Recession? Ford To Slash 10% Of Global Workforce
Having admitted in March that "used car prices will drop for years" and amid near-record inventories, a so-called 'plateau' in car sales, and soaring auto-loan losses, WSJ is reporting that Ford is planning substantial cuts to its global workforce amid CEO Mark Fields’s drive to boost profits and address the auto maker’s sliding stock price, according to people briefed on the plan.
With near record high inventories of 3.9 million vehicles…
Demand tumbling…
and a flood of off-lease vehicles set to send prices tumbling, as Morgan Stanley recently pointed out, we're just getting started as they see used car prices dropping by up to 50% over the next 5 years.
It appears Ford has seen the light of survival in this non-recession, recession… (via The Wall Street Journal)
The move comes as Ford targets $3 billion in cost cuts for 2017, a plan aimed at improving profitability in 2018 even as U.S. auto sales plateau.
Ford’s share price has suffered during Mr. Fields’s three-year tenure, and the company’s market value has slipped far behind Tesla and General Motors.
The job cuts, expected to be outlined as early as this week, largely target salaried employees and aim to reduce the global head count by an equivalent of about 10%, these people said.
It is unclear if the plan includes cuts to the hourly workforce at Ford’s U.S. factories and plants that are abroad.
Ford has 200,000 employees globally, half of which work in North America…
One can only imagine what this will do to production, and thus US manufacturing output – still The Fed should hike rates anyway, right? How is this not a recession?
And finally, let's reflect a little on the government's hand in this utter debacle. As a reminder, for those who vehemently believe that Ford did not receive a government bailout…
Although Ford did not receive TARP funds, it did receive government loans. These were critical because banks were not lending during the financial crisis. It requested a $9 billion line-of-credit from the government. In return, it pledged to spend $14 billion on new technologies. (Source: "Ford to Congress: Keep $9 Billion Handy for Us," Politico, December 2, 2008.)
On June 23, 2009, Ford received a $5.9 billion loan from the Energy Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. In return, it pledged to accelerate development of both hybrid and battery-powered vehicles, close dealerships and sell Volvo. It upgraded factories in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio to produce hybrid vehicles.
Ford used the funds to switch its focus to commercial electric vehicles. In 2016, CEO Mark Fields said, “"We want to become a top player in electrified solutions.” The company wants to lead, “…we can win such as with our commercial vehicles." (Source: "Trump Should Be Asking: Will Ford Pay Off Its Loan Before Moving Small Car Production to Mexico?" Forbes, September 21, 2016.)
Eighty-one percent of the funds went to create new efficiency technologies for gas-powered vehicles. For example, they helped fund Ford's aluminum bodies in the F-series pickups. The Congressional Research Service estimated the loans saved 33,000 jobs. Ford will repay this loan by 2022. (Source: "The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program: Status and Issues," Congressional Research Service, January 15, 2015.)
Many argue that Ford needed the funds to sustain its cash flow during the recession. Ford says it was in better shape than the other two because it had mortgaged its assets in 2006 to raise $23.6 billion. It used the loans to retool its product lineup to focus on smaller, energy efficient vehicles. It got the United Automobile Workers to agree it could finance half of a new retiree health care trust with company stock. By April 2009, it retired $9.9 billion of the debt it had taken out in 2006. (Sources: "Obama Administration Awards First Three Auto Loans," Energy.gov, June 23, 2009. "How Ford Avoided the Meltdown that Hit GM, Chrysler," CNBC, April 9, 2009.)
So to clarify:
- Dec 2008 – headcount 213,000
- Dec 2008 – Ford received $9bn line of credit from the government. The Congressional Research Service estimated the loans saved 33,000 jobs. Ford will repay this loan by 2022.
- May 2017 – headcount 180,000
Money well spent… to lock in a few more voters, eh?
As The Wall Street Journal concludes, deep cuts in the U.S. could trigger political backlash due to the role the auto industry played during the campaign and early tenure of President Donald Trump.
- Trump Derangement Syndrome Worsens In Washington State: "She's Going Nuts"
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing, the first symptom of which, according to an op-ed in the LA Times, is a loss of all sense of proportion by those afflicted with the recently discovered disease.
Don’t believe us?
Just take 2 minutes to watch the following video from Western Washington University, a bastion of free speech, tolerance and progressive ideals. What you’ll see is a female student come completely unhinged after seeing a sign supporting Donald Trump.
Within milliseconds of crossing paths with the sign the unnamed student is triggered to such an extent that she shrieks at the top of her lungs.
A passerby from a part of the country that may not be as progressive as Washington might have thought the woman was being stabbed by a knife wielding terrorist.
But no… It was just a sign:
Via Campus Reform
At certain points throughout the video, passers-by stop to ask the woman if she’s alright, to which she seems to indicate that she’s screaming as a form of protest.
“Right here on the Western Washington campus, she’s going nuts with a Trump sign—she doesn’t like the Trump sign. She’s anti-Trump,” preacher Eric Bostrom can be heard explaining in the video, holding a sign that reads “Trump: Borders, Laws, Jobs, Liberty, USA,” and another intentionally-obtrusive sign containing shocking bible verses about judgement.
In the video, Bostrom claims that the woman screaming is “an art major,” and at one point in the video another woman who appears to be an administrator runs into the shot to ask the student if she is alright, to which the student replies “call the police, bitch.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen protesters totally lose control because of their affliction.
At the moment Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States, a video of this person totally freaking out was captured and shared across the world, highlighting just how difficult a time liberal snowflakes were having with their new reality:
Best thing you'll see today. Just trust me on this one. pic.twitter.com/p7h7araVd7
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 20, 2017
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